360 backward compatibility's days numbered

When the Xbox 360 was announced, one of the hot topics on gamers' minds was backward compatibility. People wanted to make sure they could play Halo 2 on the new machine, as well as anything else that may be in their Xbox libraries.

The 360 came out of the box with more than 200 games on its BC list, but has since seen few updates to the list. As Microsoft pushes forward into the next generation, does that mean additions to the Xbox BC list are going the way of the dodo?

According to a Kikizo interview with Microsoft VP Peter Moore, that could very well be the case. "Nobody is concerned anymore about backward compatibility," Moore said. "We under promised and over delivered on backward compatibility. Yeah, there are a few games...It's a very complicated thing. Developing software emulation for this thing is very complex work."

While phasing out BC with future Xbox games was almost certainly going to happen sometime, Moore's comments seem to imply that it's happening sooner than most thought.

"More are coming...but at some point you just go 'there's enough,' or 'let's move on'...people aren't as worried about a game being backward compatible," he said. "I like to think we upheld our end of the bargain [with backward compatibility]."